Growing with Rochester since 1929

The theme of our local Rochester Garden & Flower Club, Celebrating 90 years this year!

What fun developing ways to celebrate throughout the year.  I co-chaired the 90th Anniversary Celebration Committee and we decided to celebrate in multiple events to keep our focus on this awesome organization in our community!

One of the ways of celebrating was at our Plant Sale when we handed out 90 Viola 2 pks to our first 90 customers!  What fun and what smiles we received.  An old fashioned flower that will reseed each year with spring color popping up to greet them!

Open Garden Time in the Hosta Club!

Late May we usually have a unique event in our Shades of  Green Hosta Society of SE MN!
It's a fun time which is primarily a social event featuring meeting at one of our member's gardens, but includes food (as usual we eat at all events), door prizes, a special featured speaker, a chance to get  new plant at our Silent Auction, and catch up on plans for the approaching Hosta Sale!

This year we met at our founder's Rochester Gardens, our speaker was one of our members who is also a Master Gardener sharing information on Aggressive Plants!  I won a door prize of a year's membership in the American Hosta Society, food was awesome, catching up with other members was great!  Add a photo op of beautiful plants and features in Cindy's garden beds!   (We do grow other plants than hostas!)

I always wish I had a tree for this plant....a climbing hydrangea!

Plant Sale Time!

Once again we spent three busy days setting up and conducting our Garden Club's Annual Plant Sale!
My favorite event every year!  We celebrated our 80th annual sale this year with $11,519 in sales in just two sessions.  First day was 4 PM to 7 PM and second day was 8 AM to 11 AM.  That's just 7 hours of sale time!  We closed an hour early, sold out this year!  The majority of plants are donations that our members are sharing from their own gardens!  So, we have reasonable prices and area hardy plants to sell!  When we opened it took 45 minutes for the people in line to get inside!  That's lots of gardeners and eager customers!

Our members are such a fun team to work with, lots of bonding, sharing gardening information and plants!  Not to mention the good food shared to keep our energy up during our 1 1/2 days of set up tasks!  Gardeners are good cooks, by the way!

Money once again to keep our community projects funded and contribute $2,000 in scholarships to our local college Horticulture Department's students!  Yes, it is a very satisfying event to participate in!

That's me on the left and Deb, our long term chair, 

celebrating 20 years of working together on this project!

Our Annual Plant Shopping Day into Iowa

Once again the four of us gardening friends, headed out for a fun day into Iowa  shopping for plants!

Once again we filled our two vehicles up and had a great lunch!  This year Barb's (my driver) husband cleared out his van and put in 30 plastic milk carton crates for us.  What a perfect way to get those tender plants home in pristine condition!  We put shorter plants in one and then top that crate with another crate and fill it with taller plants!  They ride home in their protective cages just fine!

Thanks Joe!  You are soooo good to us!

This year I added two hanging baskets to my purchases because, due to our recent lifestyle change to being home 12 months of the year,  I  will be home 7 days a week to water them as they need to be!

I'll take pictures later to show you.  Unbelievable what we got for only $19 each!

Pansy Pot Time!

A bit later than usual, but I've fallen in love with the big giant all yellow pansy pots at Gerten's in The Cities!  So, just had to wait until we had the time to take a trip to visit a friend near there and shop at Gerten's!

We added a stop at a Perkin's for lunch before heading home and checking to see if our friends were home and up to company for a visit!

Yep, they were, so that made the trip extra nice to catch up with them!

For twenty years I have put a pot of pansies on my neighbor's step!  Her home is yellow and she loves yellow flowers!  That gives me a good excuse to indulge in two pots brimming with sunshine!

She is a special lady in our life, now in her 90's but living life to the fullest as she can!  Denny recently caught her out with her shovel in her driveway during the last snow and he chased her back inside with his shovel!